Cost of industrial production has spiralled, but the rate of increase in production and output has not shown a similar trend. Ecological and social costs, meanwhile, are totally disregarded in this environment. GR (growth rate)made Punjab one of the richest states in India in terms of per capita income. From Rs 2,674 in 1980-81, the per capita income at current prices rose to Rs 19,770 in 1997-98. and in 2020-21 per capita income rose to Rs 26000 plus as per recent survey. Punjab got massive investments as far as infrastructure is concerned. The farmers’ lifestyle improved. No one can deny these benefits, which were direct results of GR. But, today, it is not GR that is sustaining them. Says Giana Singh, Plahi village priest, who has two sons working in Italy, “It is the money orders that are sustaining us now.” There are many more like him in the state.

There has been a meteoric increase in the consumption of fertilisers – from 5,000 tonnes in 1960-61 to highest in India in million tonnes presently. The number of tubewells has gone up from 0.2 million in 1970-71 to 1.5 million today. Further, with the water table declining, farmers are forced to rebore their wells every year. This along with many other incidental costs has increased the cost of production. Up to 1989-90, the cost of production was fairly stable. The increase has been phenomenal thereafter and is continuing to rise. The rate of increase in rice-wheat yield, however, does not match the rise in consumption of fertilisers. The cost of production, however, does not take into consideration the ecological cost, which is also manifesting itself in the rising expenses. The social cost – increase in suicide rates – is also spiralling. But there is no attempt to understand the link.

The larger issue besides ecological cost is the human toll of GR. Incidence of cancer and other diseases are on the rise and despite numerous studies abroad to show the link between environment and good health, no epidemiological studies have been conducted in the state so far. With the onset of GR, the area under wheat and rice cultivation registered an exceptional increase. The increased production of rice and wheat in the state has had a direct bearing on the increased demand of water to meet the crop requirements. This has been possible due to expansion of the irrigation network, initially through canals and recently through shallow tubewells. As the canal irrigation system has been completely neglected in the last 56 years. The policies of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal government are sucking the earth dry. In a bid to upstage his Congress rival Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal announced free power for farmers on the eve of the 1996-97 elections. “This is leading to more extraction of water. The loss in terms of revenue to the Punjab State Electricity Board is very high. Rising from 605 cr subsidy to 18000 cr plus since 1997 to 2022. Now ‘free power’ has become a political issue. Unfortunately, it is an issue only because of the economic losses, not what the policy is doing to the scare natural resource. The policy of giving free electricity and water is not only shortsighted but also suicidal. Says Gurdev S Khush, an eminent agricultural scientist and winner of Wolf Prize, Israel’s equivalent of the Nobel, in an interview to a national daily, “Anything given free is misused. Farmers are willing to pay for power. What they want is regular supply of electricity. The revenue lost by supplying free electricity could have been used to develop resources to generate more electricity.”

Over extraction of water has led to a host of problems in Punjab. Some areas hit by a severe water scarcity while, others suffer from a grave waterlogging problem. There is a misconception that Punjab has abundant water resources,” says M Mehta, regional director, Central Groundwater Board (northern region). Out of the 118 blocks in Punjab, 62 blocks have overexploited their groundwater resources. “The water table has declined in 77 per cent of the state. Most of this area falls in central Punjab, which produces 67 per cent of rice and 56 per cent of wheat. As a result, the water table has gone down in many districts, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Sangrur, Patiala and Faridkot, by more than four metres. Over extraction of water has led to a host of problems in Punjab. Some areas hit by a severe water scarcity while, others suffer from a grave waterlogging problem. There is a misconception that Punjab has abundant water resources,” says M Mehta, regional director, Central Groundwater Board (northern region). Out of the 118 blocks in Punjab, 62 blocks have overexploited their groundwater resources. “The water table has declined in 77 per cent of the state. Most of this area falls in central Punjab, which produces 67 per cent of rice and 56 per cent of wheat. As a result, the water table has gone down in many districts, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Sangrur, Patiala and Faridkot, by more than four metres. The fertile soil, where everything seemed to prosper, is also turning barren.

The state has set up a soil-testing lab in every district, but the farmers find them inadequate and inefficient. The fact that even on a busy weekday, the Bhatinda lab was found totally unattended with samples scattered on the floor. The soil problems in Punjab are the direct results of intensive cropping, to meet the growing needs of an increasing population. To sustain the present level of production and to further increase it, conservation and upgradation of soils and better water management practices are required. “It has been estimated that 1.5 million ha of land is already faced with various types of soil degradation. Sub-mountainous areas falling in Ropar, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur and a part of Patiala district have an annual soil loss of about 25 tonnes per ha. In Ferozepur, Faridkot, Muktsar, Mansa, and Sangrur districts in the southern zone the rising water table has resulted in salinity and alkalinity problems. In the central zone comprising Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Fatehgarh Sahib, soil erosion is not as acute as groundwater depletion. Excessive cultivation of rice has led to another problem, that of selenium toxicity. there is a severe micronutrient deficiency in the soil, according to the ICAR report.

In the major rice-wheat regions, the organic carbon content of soils was found to be less than 0.5 per cent in 1960s,is eroding further now to drastic levels of negativity. Lack of organic carbon reduces water and nutrient-holding capacity of the soil. Furthermore, in the absence of adequate organic matter, soil organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and earthworms are reduced or lost, notes the ICAR report. The heavy withdrawal of essential plant nutrients from soils through bumper harvests and intensive cropping patterns has brought down the levels of micronutrients to a point of deficiency. Zinc is now considered the third-most limiting nutrient after nitrogen and potash and has become a household word with farmers of the state. “The adoption of rice-wheat rotation on vast areas of non-traditional rice-growing soils of the state caused an increase in iron deficiencies also and affected crop yields particularly of rice. the extension of rice cultivation has brought in its wake the constraint of manganese deficiency. Micronutrients along with nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK) is the deciding factor for the success or failure of a crop and/or maintaining the sustainability of the soil-cropping system at higher levels of productivity. Before nitrogen was used but later nitrogen and phosphorus were used in a ratio of 1:0.5, particularly in wheat. This ratio was maintained till 1989-90. But after the government. decontrolled phosphorus and potash, increased prices resulted in reduced application of phosphorus and potash. Farmers made more use of nitrogenous fertilisers to cover the limited application of phosphorous and potash. This led to an imbalance. There are now indications that Punjab farmers have started applying recommended doses of phosphorus although many farmers still apply nitrogen much more than recommended doses. Studies carried out by various experts show that high nitrate content of groundwater is related to use of nitrogenous fertilisers. Depending on the application, crop, soil and climate, 35-60 per cent of the applied nitrogen is usually recovered by the crop and 10-20 per cent may be converted to nitrogen gas, nitrous oxides or ammonia. The remaining nitrogen may leach into the groundwater. Social problems and ecological devastation come hand in hand.
The flipside of Punjab’s meteoric rise to fame is the growing despair and discontent prevailing now in farmers distress. Suicides only followed the indebtedness. A study, Suicides in Rural Punjab, conducted by the Institute of Development and Communication, Chandigarh, states that the crisis is one due to overall stagnation of the economy. Punjab remains an “agricultural” state and, unfortunately, is proud about it. The current agitation in Zira distillery issue and environmental degradation should be a wake-up call for Punjab’s policy makers.

Though a large proportion of Punjab’s population continues to live in rural areas, the so-called traditional structure of the village has seen many fundamental shifts during the period following the green revolution. The internal differentiation along caste and class lines that the farming sector has experienced during the green/post-green revolution periods has weakened the latter’s position in regional and national politics. The weakening of farmers movements and the marginalisation of the agrarian agenda need to be understood in the context of this fragmentation of the agrarian communities